"Matt and Paolo have released Easy News Topics (ENT 1.0) for RSS 2.0. I'm not technical enough to remark on it. Mostly I'm interested in hearing what Dave, David, Brent and others have to say about it." [The Doc Searls Weblog]

This is excellent news, especially since we were just talking about classification and grouping by topics at the GILS conference!

"This specification defines the Easy News Topics (ENT) Module for the RSS2.0 syndication format. ENT is intended to be a very simple standard for describing how topic information can be introduced into an RSS2.0 news feed.

The goals of ENT are to:

1. be as simple to implement as possible
2. represent topics sufficiently that they be useful in enabling smart aggregators (e.g. filtering, recombining feeds, etc...)
3. allow, via linking, use of more powerful and flexible standards where appropriate

Whilst we hope that readers will come up with many applications for ENT topics that we have not conceived of our immediate hope is that providing a quick and easy way to add topic metadata to RSS2.0 feeds will enable a new generation of aggregator applications to be written. These aggregators will allow people to filter items they do not wish to see, prioritize those about things they are interested in and recombine items into new feeds. We think these will be very exciting and useful applications and look forward to seeing them emerge."

Texas School Libraries

"At this time, the Texas Library Connection has not been recommended for funding. Library advocates are urged to call or fax their senators IMMEDIATELY, particularly if they serve on the Senate Finance Committee. Ask your senator to support funding for the Texas Library Connection at $4 million per year. This is the program's current funding and insures access to a rich body of electronic educational information for students.

Be sure to tell your senator that "the Texas Library Connection (TLC) is a program administered through the Texas Education Agency. TLC was included in TEA's original budget request in Rider 21 of the Agency's budget. Rider 21 covered TEA's Long Range Plan for Technology Initiative, which included the Texas Library Connection, an $8 million biennial program ($4 million for each year)." Tell your senator that funding for the Texas Library Connection is crucial for student success. Describe TLC and it impact on students.--from TLA TEXLINE NO. 152 The possibility that this wonderful program may be cut is incomprehensible. It has provided access to databases for all the public schools, a union catalog, an ILL system, and training." [Catalogablog]

"Is Gnomedex the first conference with an RSS feed?" [The Scobleizer Weblog]